Is it time for us all to forgive and be forgiven?

 

Bill Knight column for 3-25, 26 or 27, 2021

 An Illinois friend recently had an intriguing, maybe inspiring, suggestion. Instead of disagreement or revenge, we all could seek common ground and forgiveness.

“The President could appear before a joint session of Congress and call for a National Week of Forgiveness,” he says.

That seems like a meaningful but “safe” notion so apolitical it surely would be supported by not only Democrats and Republicans, but Greens and Libertarians, Democratic Socialists and Proud Boys.

Some may mock the proposition. Fine. Turn the other cheek.

It’s sincere, coming from a man with various talents. The semi-pro humorist and long-time health professional has seen some people almost die laughing, and he’s witnessed others literally die.

He has some useful perspective.

The time has come, he says, for forgiveness. On a personal and universal scale.

“We can begin to nurture and heal ourselves by taking a week to look inward toward our own shame and regret,” he continues. “Insist that we all seek out someone we have wronged and seek their forgiveness. The President could ask that no one seeking forgiveness be rebuked. As it is commanded in Scripture: Forgive me as I forgive others.

“Then we can look at the bigger task of shifting the narrative from grievances to accountability for one another as fellow citizens of a nation under God.”

Maybe it’s past time, he adds.

“Our current circumstances as a nation scream out a spiritual deficiency that is destroying our ability to summon the will to live by the core principles that are supposed to define us as Americans,” he says. “Absent a collective belief in what we are about and who we want to be, we're screwed – and so is this beautiful experiment called democracy.

“If we could just dial down the spin and vitriol, we might still survive this madness.”

Imagine: The event could dominate media, dinner-table conversation and Zoom visits for days, and maybe even extend thinking and feelings from foreign leaders and everyday people, friends and foes.

Perhaps Biden is the right person at the right time, too. His Catholicism holds forgiveness (Reconciliation) as one of its seven sacraments. And people may disagree with some of Biden’s policies or proposals, but most appreciate his sincerity. His approval rating is 61%, according to findings this month by the nonpartisan Center for American Political Studies at Harvard and the Harris Poll.

Besides a neutral tone akin to the National Prayer Breakfast or coast-to-coast days of mourning, a National Week of Forgiveness should appeal to all organized religions, too. Already, faith leaders practice the act and value its wisdom.

During Pope Francis’ trip to war-torn Iraq this month, he visited the ruined city of Mosul and commented, “Our human cruelty is unbelievable,” and THEN he offered a short prayer for the war’s victims AND terrorists.

With the Pope there, Muslim historian Omar Mohammed said, “The only way to live in peace with yourself is to tolerate the other. Sectarianism will lead to destruction and violence.”

 Mahatma Gandhi, born Hindu, once commented, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

Judaism’s Talmud says God created repentance before He created the universe.

Buddhism’s head monk, the Dalai Lama, said, “All major religious traditions carry basically the same message; that is love, compassion and forgiveness – the important thing is they should be part of our daily lives.”

Can that grow from a week? Say, in May? Surely there’s room along with National Wildflower Week and Small Business Week (both the first part of the month), with Nurses Week (May 6-12) and National Police Week (the following week).

After forgiveness week wraps up, resulting good will might encourage leaders, my friend continues, like Biden asking Congress to “choose one problem with a broad scope from a list he would provide, and find a solution for the good of the people.”

Health care? Infrastructure? Homelessness?

“Prove to the people that you're worthy of your positions of power by doing your job,” says my friend, whose smile is as wide as his heart is huge,

“Maybe I'm crazy,” he adds. “But I think in this era of unprecedented fear and uncertainty, people are looking for true strength, not bravado.”

Put people back to work through uplifting national service

 

Bill Knight column for 3-22, 23 or 24, 2021

 A year ago next week, two national-service proposals were introduced by Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). The Pandemic Response and Opportunity through National Service Act was backed by Illinois’ Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, but it was sent to the Finance Committee to languish. The Undertaking National Initiatives to Tackle Epidemic Act (UNITE Act) was sent to another committee.

They should be revived and expanded.

Both focused on COVID-19 and its consequences, arguably from contact tracing to child-care, drawing on AmeriCorps, FEMA volunteers, Fulbright scholars, the Peace Corps, the Senior Corps, etc.

Now, another crisis – joblessness – shows such help is needed. It’s the right thing to do and also a smart move for the country.

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said 86 years ago during the Great Depression, “Continued dependence on relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.”

The Bureau of Labor Statistics this month reported 18 million received unemployment checks as of mid-February, and 2 million more filed for jobless benefits during the rest of the month. That’s 20 million Americans without work.

Already, President Biden on Jan. 27 signed an executive order creating a Civilian Climate Corps (CCC) providing “good jobs” to restore public lands and train in environmentally friendly careers, patterned after the Civilian Conservation Corps, which employed about 3 million Americans from 1933-42.

“The Civilian Climate Corps could be about more than conserving public lands, expanding its focus to other pressing problems, like cleaning up polluted towns,” writes environmental journalist Kate Yoder. “In his executive order, Biden declared that the corps should ‘bolster community resilience’ and ‘address the changing climate’.”

FDR’s New Deal – which aimed for “relief, reform and recovery” – left a government-coordinated legacy of grassroots efforts and successes by Americans in the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and allied efforts.

Just as the old CCC planted trees and constructed parks, shelters, trails, roads and dams, a new CCC would create jobs while helping protect clean water and air and start to realize a more sustainable future, and it also would let the less fortunate pick up themselves, develop skills, build pride and dignity, and help inspire the nation. And a return to a successful blend of a jobs program and national service need not be limited to the climate.

Restoring a CCC is popular. Polling by Data for Progress shows 60% of all voters favoring the idea (and 85% of Democrats), and Yale’s Program on Climate Change Communication said 85% of Americans back reviving the original Civilian Conservation Corps.

“Just as picking up a rifle to defend our country is ‘American Service,’ so is helping out a food pantry for those at risk of hunger, assisting students with remote education, and helping patients make critical health-care decisions,” Duckworth said. “We should be doing everything we can to make sure these vital service programs are accessible to all Americans who wish to serve during times of crisis like these.”

Other WPA operations included the Federal Art Project and similar endeavors for writers, music and theater. Thousands of artists in all states were employed, and some became prominent – Thomas Hart Benton, Willem de Kooning, Dorothea Lange, Jackson Pollack and Grant Wood – making murals, statues, posters and more.

The writers project also hired folks who became renowned, from Conrad Aiken, Nelson Algren and Saul Bellow to John Cheever, Ralph Ellison and Richard Wright. Among that program’s creations was the 48-volume American Guide Series. Nobel Prize-winning author John Steinbeck said, “The complete set comprises the most comprehensive account of the United States ever got together, and nothing since has approached it.”

For wages of $24/week (about $400/week in current dollars), they were tasked with recording the country’s situation, conveying advancements, and reassuring and maybe exciting everyday Americans – giving them hope in hard times.

“I think this could be a very hopeful enterprise,” says David Kipen, a professor at UCLA who formerly was director of literature at the National Endowment for the Arts. “I think America is as short on hope these days… as it’s short of liquidity and health and all the other things it’s obviously running low on.

“There is America enough to cover and writers in need of work enough to cover it.”

Why not try it again?

“During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt said that no country can afford the waste of human resources,” said Mary Ellen Sprenkel, CEO of the Corps Network. “During this current crisis, a bold investment in national service would mobilize and unite the American people to confront a myriad of needs.”

Help is on the way – or here, in some cases

Bill Knight column for 3-18, 19 or 20, 2021

 People benefiting from the American Rescue Plan range from recipients of $1,400 payment to everyday taxpayers whose local government need help.

Already, the first wave of payments has arrived in some direct-deposit accounts, an impressive speed considering the scale of the job and the fact that those deposits came the day after President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion measure.

Coming are mailed checks or prepaid Economic Impact Payment (EIP) Visa cards to qualified individuals: Those with annual adjusted gross incomes of $75,000 or less (based on their most recent tax returns) will receive $1,400 (plus $1,400 for each eligible dependent); people earning more than $75,000 will receive less, and individuals earning $80,000 or higher are ineligible.

The American Rescue Plan (ARP), the third stimulus package tied to COVID-19 in the last year, is intended to not just help households with immediate needs, but to spark a “multiplier effect” that has recipients’ purchases spur spending by grocery stores, service stations, banks, utilities, landlords, suppliers, etc. – lifting the whole consumer economy.

ARP provides for more than $130 billion for local governments, too, according to the Center for Rural Strategies, and unlike the CARES Act, small local governments will get help from the new effort, too. The CARES Act provided direct help only to cities with populations of more than 500,000 (some 150 municipalities). Some states separately assisted others but rural areas and small towns were virtually ignored by previous pandemic-relief aid.  Now, more than $65 billion will be distributed to U.S. counties, with $8.9 billion heading to rural counties, $54.7 billion to metropolitan counties, and rest to territories and tribal lands.

It will help area and local government, whose employees have lost jobs as well as restaurant workers and many others.

“Rural communities tend to get overlooked when we’re talking about federal government relief,” said Zoe Willingham, a Center for American Progress associate who researches rural issues. “Costs are rising for everyone.”

That includes local governments.

Property taxes – which are set locally and remain relatively stable in the short-term of economic upheaval – have been less affected than the loss of sales taxes, collected from less retail spending at bars, theaters, video-game parlors, hotels and much more.

As efficient and promising as ARP is in its first week, challenges remain, as shown in the two aid packages from 2020.

Problems arose with the $1,200 and the $600 payments last year, when the help didn’t get to the neediest fast, or they didn’t arrive at all to millions of Americans.

Delayed deliveries also stemmed from the U.S. Postal Service coping with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy hamstringing the system and also some letters with the EIP cards mistakenly discarded as junk mail.

Other causes included confusion on eligibility, people without bank accounts, creditors garnishing a chunk of the payments, or the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) missing people claimed as dependents.

Reuters reports there are almost 90 million people with bank accounts and/or direct-deposit capabilities, but 150 million without them or recorded addresses, plus 7 million who don’t file taxes for whatever reason, and 1.5 million houseless citizens. They must be found and helped, too.

Lastly, a potential problem is tied to the lingering assumption that most Americans have computers, internet access and cell phones – which also bedevils the ease of registering for COVID-19 vaccinations.

Presently, for those who can access the internet at libraries, etc., the IRA has online help, including https://www.irs.gov/coronavirus/get-my-payment and https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/coronavirus-and-economic-impact-payments-frequently-asked-questions.